Article Submitted By Lamiya Siraj
NEW RELEASE | FICTION & LITERARY
Some stories do not announce themselves. They simply sit beside you, quietly, until you realise they have changed something.
Unwritten Corners, the debut short story collection by Fatema Shabbir, is exactly that kind of book.
Published by Ink and Ideas Publication House, this collection brings together thirty original works of Indian literary fiction, each rooted in the textures of ordinary life — the joint family home, the community gathering, the monsoon evening, the hospital corridor, the tuition class, and the first apartment with the leaking roof. Together, they form a portrait of lives lived with dignity, resilience, and the particular kind of love that does not announce itself.
About the Book
The love that folds the towels. The love that stays through the night in the hospital. The love that keeps writing letters to someone who can no longer receive them.
The thirty stories span a wide emotional range. Some are warm and nostalgic, returning to childhoods and the bonds they leave behind. Some are sharp and quietly powerful, addressing the invisible labour women carry within homes, the cost of chronic kindness, and the way silence is so often mistaken for the absence of thought.
Two stories incorporate Hindi and Urdu dialogue, giving the collection a distinctly Indian voice that will resonate with readers across South Asia and the diaspora. One story is set partly in the UAE, reflecting the lived experience of the Indian community abroad — a detail that makes the collection feel both rooted and expansive at once.
The collection naturally crosses religious and regional lines, featuring Muslim, Hindu, and cross-community characters without foregrounding their identities as the story’s subject. It is a collection about people — in all their complexity, contradiction, and quiet grace.
The writing style is warm, plain, and accessible — literary without being difficult, reflective without being heavy. Each story closes with a Moral of the Story, making Unwritten Corners ideal for readers who enjoy purposeful fiction, for book clubs, and for gifting occasions. It is suitable for readers from their late teens onward and designed for anyone who has ever found themselves in a story they were not supposed to recognise.
About the Author
Fatema Shabbir is a writer whose instinct is to find the story in the overlooked moment — the one no one thought worth telling. In Unwritten Corners, she brings together thirty such moments with a quietly confident literary voice that feels both deeply Indian and wholly universal.
This is her debut collection, and it is a remarkable one.
About Ink and Ideas Publication House
Unwritten Corners reflects exactly what Ink and Ideas Publication House is built to do — to give genuine, original voices the platform they deserve. As a publishing house committed to author-centred storytelling, Ink and Ideas continues to champion work that is personal, purposeful, and crafted with care.
Thirty stories. Thirty lives. One collection that stays with you long after the last page.
Unwritten Corners will be available in August 2026.
Pre-order and early details available soon.
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